Breakaway Civilization Quest

[We Just Write]

My vote's for a black hole in a globular supercluster. Going for a globular supercluster gives mobility, which means we can maximize the use of that battlecruiser if it comes to it, and we get opportunities for expansion downwards, plus an interesting strategic position. And if we're going for one of those, we're getting old stars already, may as well not have to worry about dealing with stellar death by picking something already dead. And that has the convenient bonus of adding opportunities for expansion into a megastructure right off the bat!

Click to shrink...

Z: "Old stars" doesn't mean "Old for their type" it means "Old Stars". All the ones that would have gone supernova in a globular cluster did so already.

 

[meloa789]

[X] Disk Outskirts (Mostly smaller, redder stars. Negligible supernova risk.)
A quiet backwater, far from the chaos and noise of the metropole.
[X] Red Dwarf (Long lifespan, Low power, High Activity, Starlifting Feasible)
Favorite star of long-term thinkers.

 

[We Just Write]

C: Ok, gonna wait a few hours in hopes of getting one more vote. Because as it stands, star type is a three-way tie.

 

[mugnter]

[X] Red Dwarf (Long lifespan, Low power, High Activity, Starlifting Feasible)

 

[january1may]

I agree with rytan451's reasoning. Hope it's not too late to vote.

[x] Disk Outskirts (Mostly smaller, redder stars. Negligible supernova risk.)
[x] Yellow Dwarf (Medium lifespan, Medium power, Starlifting Feasible)

 

[We Just Write]

To make the math easier, speed the pace of the game up a bit, (and better reflect advances in technology), the "construction volume" of one point of Industrial Capacity has been reduced to 160 km^3.

 

[We Just Write]

Galactic Region
-Globular Cluster: x
-Disk Outskirts: xxx

Result: Disk Outskirts

Star Type
-Black Hole: x
-Red Dwarf: xx
-Yellow Dwarf: xx

Result (resolving tie via averaging): Orange Dwarf (Calm, Medium-Long lifespan, Medium-Low power)

 

[We Just Write]

After only a bit of bickering, you all decide that you'll be making your home around an orange dwarf on the edge of the galactic disk. You do a bit of scouting around to find a suitable star, and after a bit of searching you find yourselves a nice sun to settle around, complete with a few exploitable planets. Star mass 0.86 M☉, luminosity 61 Yottawatts, overall metallicity ~2.1%.

As for the planets, shockingly enough the innermost world actually has liquid water on its surface. The gravity and day length are suspiciously similar to records of Earth, but the axial tilt is near enough 60 degrees and the atmosphere is mainly composed of Sulfur Dioxide. The general consensus opinion is that you'll probably disassemble it for raw materials at some point rather than bothering to terraform it.

Aside from that terrestrial anomaly, you've got a rocky planet, an asteroid belt, a mediocre gas giant with a few moons, and an ice world in that order. Beyond that there's only the system's Oort cloud to attract interest before you reach the next star.

Anyway now that you've familiarized yourselves with your new home, there's a burning question about what to name the place. There's a few strong contenders in the running, but a surprise option might come out on top.
[] Journeyman's Lantern
This name was originally the title of a poem written during the voyage.
[] New Homestar
Favored by the "practicalitarian" school of thought. It's a new home and it's a star.
[] Maverick
A name proposed purely on the basis of sounding "cool", despite a lack of English speakers aboard.
[] Write-In

Aside from naming the place, there's another important question to answer before the thirty year timeskip begins: Namely, how much of that should be spent with 100% of your industrial capacity spent on growth? The more of that time you spend growing at breakneck speed the more industrial capacity you'll have at the end of it, but the longer your people will need to wait for moving into proper habs and such. You're still going to be putting 50% towards growth after the downstep of course.

So, how long do you want to grow at full tilt before down-stepping to something more sustainable? You will need to invest 900 industrial output to both house your entire population in proper habitats, and supply enough civilian Skimmers to service them.

[] 0 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 280, Invested Output: 930, 35% chance of -Cohesion)
Though diverting resources to other projects right from the start is an option, it's one with little to recommend it.

[] 5 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 399, Invested Output: 1,402)
A minimal period of intense build-up before important initiatives like housing begin.

[] 10 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 685, Invested Output: 2,480, 5% chance of -Cohesion)
A longer plan than five years to be sure, but still quite short in the grand scheme of things.

[] 15 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 1164, Invested Output: 3,862, 10% chance of -Cohesion)
A middle-of-the-road option, offering both good buildup and a reasonable time until habs are ready.

[] 20 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 1971, Invested Output: 5,456, 25% chance of -Cohesion)
On the upper end of reasonable waiting periods, going this long has pros and cons.

[] 25 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 3339, Invested Output: 5,944, 50% chance of -Cohesion)
One Gigasecond since founding is both an important anniversary and a long time to wait.

[] 30 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 5655, Invested Output: 0, -Cohesion, 40% chance of premature down-step)
Though delaying basic housing for over a Gigasecond is strictly speaking an option, it will upset people.

The next thing on the agenda is what sorts of things you want to build with your shiny new industrial base; after all, simply getting a bunch of habitats set up is just the start of things. So, what else is on the agenda?
(This section is ranked choice voting; mark the boxes [1],[2],[3] etc. in order of preference.)

[] Additional Habitation (Directly increases population)
Make more places to live, and people will gladly fill them in fairly short order.

[] Wormhole Production Capacity (1 output per cm^2 of wormholes made per turn)
A strong wormhole industry is the beating heart of any interstellar power.

[] Civilian Voidskippers (REQUIRES WORMHOLES)
While you may not yet have any going interstellar concerns, that's no reason not to prepare for them.

[] System Defenses (REQUIRES WORMHOLES)
Mass-producing armed Skimmers and a basic Temporal Control System is a good first step to defending your system from possible threats.

[] Warships (REQUIRES WORMHOLES)
Is producing full-fledged military Voidskippers a bit paranoid at the present time? Yes.

Only two more things to cover before the time skip. Of these remaining two, the most important is your exploration policy; knowing your stellar neighborhood is quite the important undertaking, and how you want to go about it is highly relevant.

[] Don't bother
Ho hum, I'm sure this won't bite us in the ass.

[] Telescope snooping
See the galaxy from the comfort of your own home!

[] Rig the freighter for exploration and let it go do that
Ah, nothing quite like a good old fashioned five year mission where no man has gone before.

[] Make a bunch of Skimmers fitted with comm. holes and send those
While limited to c, this will still let you get some up close and personal looks at a number of nearby stars.

The last matter of any relevance is the fate of the Nomad Skipper. While all your other ships can reasonably fit into a sedentary civilization, the Nomad Skipper by and large doesn't. It's fitted with all sorts of equipment that, while highly useful for a nomadic lifestyle, is simply no longer needed. As such, there's a few options for what to do with it.

[] Mothball the ship once people aren't living on it anymore, and maintain it in usable condition. (???)
Sometimes ships just have sentimental value, you know?

[] Cannibalize its parts for industrial usage. (+10% to post-timeskip industrial base and invested output)
A brutally pragmatic course of action.

[] Put any complainers aboard and send them on their way. (Reduces odds of Cohesion penalty from a long wait by 10%)
The time-honored answer to people who don't like how you run things.

 

[DoubleThought]

Oh, I like this:
[x] Journeyman's Lantern

For the buildup period, I'm leaning towards either 5 or 20 years. They're the ones with the most industrial capacity per chance of cohesion loss. I'm happy to hear arguments either way. However, I honestly think the 20 year option, with the huge industrial capacity, is much better.

For the post-buildup production round, here's my vote:
[1] Wormhole Production Capacity (1 output per cm^2 of wormholes made per turn)
[2] Additional Habitation (Directly increases population)
[3] System Defenses (REQUIRES WORMHOLES)

Wormholes are an important strategic resource. Additional population seems like it'd help with exponential growth. System defences are useful, and seem like they'd be cheaper than a full military prep. It's also more defensive, and since we don't really have any need for an invasion force, it seems like they'd be more cost effective.

For exploration:
[x] Rig the freighter for exploration and let it go do that

Getting a good amount of intel on the surrounding area is a good idea. There's some abnormalities in this galaxy, and sending out the freighter (I vote we dub it "Enterprise") should let us find what is happening.

Finally, to do with the nomad skipper? It depends on what we do with the buildup phase. I think option 2 and 3 are powerful, depending on what we choose for the buildup period. Of course, we're not sure what option 1 is. Possibly a cohesion bonus, or some sort of museum? Honestly, I can be swayed all three ways, depending on what we do with the buildup phase.

 

[Luckless21]

Too bad we can't send the skimmer exploring too, either with or seperate from the freghter.

 

[We Just Write]

Too bad we can't send the skimmer exploring too, either with or seperate from the freghter.

Click to shrink...

Z: There's too much of your construction equipment and population aboard for sending the Nomad Skipper exploring to make sense.

 

[Ragura]

[X] Journeyman's Lantern
I really like the name
[X] Rig the freighter for exploration and let it go do that
[X] Mothball the ship once people aren't living on it anymore, and maintain it in usable condition. (???)
Better to have and not need. In case we need to leave on short notice, or need a warship on short notice, or want to colonize other systems QUICKLY

 

[We Just Write]

C: We do need people to actually vote on the industrial plan.

 

[meloa789]

[X] New Homestar
Favored by the "practicalitarian" school of thought. It's a new home and it's a star.
[X] 15 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 1164, Invested Output: 7724, 10% chance of -Cohesion)
A middle-of-the-road option, offering both good buildup and a reasonable time until habs are ready.
[1] Wormhole Production Capacity (1 output per cm^2 of wormholes made per turn)
[2] Additional Habitation (Directly increases population)
[3] System Defenses (REQUIRES WORMHOLES)
[X] Telescope snooping
See the galaxy from the comfort of your own home!
[X] Mothball the ship once people aren't living on it anymore, and maintain it in usable condition. (???)
Sometimes ships just have sentimental value, you know?

 

[We Just Write]

Z: Attention: there was a mathematical error with regards to industrial output invested at the end of the timeskip. It has been corrected.

 

[DoubleThought]

Right, I think with those numbers, I'll also stick with 15 years and mothballing the Nomad Skipper (for use as a museum, possibly), leaving my vote as:

[x] Journeyman's Lantern

[x] 15 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 1164, Invested Output: 3,862, 10% chance of -Cohesion)

[1] Wormhole Production Capacity (1 output per cm^2 of wormholes made per turn)
[2] Additional Habitation (Directly increases population)
[3] System Defenses (REQUIRES WORMHOLES)

[x] Rig the freighter for exploration and let it go do that

[x] Mothball the ship once people aren't living on it anymore, and maintain it in usable condition. (???)

Also, if the freighter is used for exploration

[x] Freighter Name: Enterprise

 

[january1may]

Don't see anything wrong with DoubleThought's plan except maybe the exploration, and in that case it's not like any of the other options are better. (Note that the telescopes are also limited to c in a way, and probably aren't that good in resolution.)

[x] Journeyman's Lantern

[x] 15 years (Final Industrial Capacity: 1164, Invested Output: 3,862, 10% chance of -Cohesion)

[1] Wormhole Production Capacity (1 output per cm^2 of wormholes made per turn)
[2] Additional Habitation (Directly increases population)
[3] System Defenses (REQUIRES WORMHOLES)

[x] Mothball the ship once people aren't living on it anymore, and maintain it in usable condition. (???)

Also, if the freighter is used for exploration

[x] Freighter Name: Enterprise

(Note that I skipped the specific exploration vote for now.)

 

[We Just Write]

Name
Journeyman's Lantern: xxx
New Homestar: x

Industrial Plan
15 years: xxx

Secondary Building Priorities
[1] Wormhole Production
[2] Additional Habitation
[3] System Defenses

Exploration
Send Freighter: xx
Telescopes: x

Fate of the Nomad Skipper
Mothball: xxxx
[dice]28954[/dice]
[dice]28955[/dice]

 

[DoubleThought]

Journeyman's Lantern, by anonymous

The teacher spreads a lesson to me
Making the journeyman's lantern
The apprentice spreads their wings to leave
Lighting the journeyman's lantern
The night has come and we walk on
Following the journeyman's lantern

We're merry as we walk and walk
The lantern shines its light on us
We're merry as we sit and talk
And we call where we settle Home

This short poem, though rough, resonated in our hearts as we drifted through the intergalactic void. No wonder we named our new home star for it.

 

[We Just Write]

It's been thirty years since you arrived at the Journeyman's Lantern system, and several major events have taken place.

First and foremost, the industrial build-up has born plentiful fruit. You've gone from a bunch of machine shops operating out of a few ships to a set of mining, refining, and construction operations capable of churning out 46,560 cubic kilometers of sophisticated manufactured goods per customary year. Your wormhole industry has similarly been expanded to something halfway respectable for a society at your level of development.

Aside from that, you've set about building proper habitats for your population; no planetary-class drums yet, but you've made plentiful O'Neill Cylinders. In fact you made a fair bit more than were needed to accommodate your existing population. The people quickly reproduced to fill the new space, and now your population has officially passed the 650 million mark.

The last major industrial project was fabricating a bunch of militarized Skimmers for system defenses. It was ultimately decided that Temporal Control was more important than beam power, so more TCS nodes were constructed. Their comms holes were all centralized aboard a newly constructed omniball* as a command hub, and soon enough your star system was reasonably defended.

That said, all these industrial projects have had some fallout: Namely that you don't have enough people providing services due to so many working in the industrial sector. It's getting quite hard to find time with a doctor, adjudicator, bio-tailor, or any number of other such people, and the people are getting restless about it.

(Issue: Service Sector Crunch! Too much of your population is employed in the industrial sector! Increase population relative to industrial base to compensate!)

*an omniball is a spherical Skimmer able to immediately warp in any direction. Their only real application is TCS command posts due to the limitations imposed by the design.

As for the freighter's exploration mission, it discovered something really downright bizarre. Namely an abnormally high number of Earthlike planets, complete with complex diverse biospheres. Even just finding one would be completely bizarre, but it goes further than that. In fact, it seems like one out of every thousand stars is home to an extant garden world.

This flies in the face of both theoretical models and previous practical experience in the Milky Way. Even more odd is that all these biospheres share a common biochemical basis; that's not even the case for different brands of biomorph among transhumanity. Someone or something has gone around terraforming planets en masse and seeding them with a common root biosphere, and you're not quite sure why.

Still, the fact of the matter is that you're far on the galactic outskirts, and the rate of habitable planets seems to be increasing the further into the galaxy the Enterprise goes.

Concurrently to the Enterprise's mission, your physicists have been going over just about everything again. All your tech still works pretty much as expected thankfully, but the values of several crucial constants of physics are just different enough for you to draw a shocking conclusion: you are now in a different universe from the one you left. It's a bit uncertain if there's going to be any useful new tech coming from this fact, but it's definitely left people a little bit uneasy.

As for the Nomad Skipper, it was ultimately decided to convert it into a museum ship. Everyone aboard was moved off to the new habitats, systems were powered down, the industrial equipment was relocated, and a tour schedule has been set up. It should do a lot to remind future generations how you got here.

(Unique Asset: Arrival Museum: Will Provide a +Cohesion bonus when population exceeds 43 Billion)

Population Employment Graph
-Total: 653,760,000
-Industrial: 349,200,000 (~53%)
--Wormhole: 120,500,000 (~18%)
-Logistics: 0
-Military: 12,200,000 (~2%)
-Service Sector: 106,860,000 (~16%)
-Non-Working: 65,000,000 (~10%)
NOTE: If possible you want to keep your service sector at least 35% of your population; that's your doctors, social scientists, artists, restaurant owners, teachers, social workers, law enforcement, etc.
NOTE: ~10% of population fixed as non-working; industrial, logistics and military jobs subtracted from working population to get service sector.

Anyway, now's the time to set the industrial plan for the next five years.

First up, how much of your industrial base should be dedicated to growth?
(Note: Safely operating one unit of Industrial Capacity requires 300,000 population.)
(Industrial Labor Population: 349.2 mil/653.76 mil)
[] 0% (Final Industrial Capacity: 1164, Output Invested: 5820)
[] 25% (Final Industrial Capacity: 1576, Output Invested: 4946)
[] 50% (Final Industrial Capacity: 2098, Output Invested: 3734)
[] 75% (Final Industrial Capacity: 2749, Output Invested: 2113)
[] 100% (Final Industrial Capacity: 2842, 10% chance of -Cohesion)

Next on the agenda, what do you want to build with your industrial surplus during the next five years?
(Mark the box for all options you approve of; priority decided by number of votes per option, up to three marks per box per voter)

Civilian Construction
[] Additional Habitats (default pop density 600/km^2)(select type)
-[] Basic Habitats (800 km^2 per invest, fragile, Penalizes Cohesion)
-[] Continent-Class Habitats (40 km^2 per invest, minimum cost: 236,000 invest, minimum size: 9.44 mil km^2)
(Locked, insufficient industrial capacity)
-[] Planetary-Class Habitats (2 km^2 per invest, fortified, minimum cost: 118 mil invest, minimum size: 236 mil km^2)
(Locked, insufficient industrial capacity)

[] Wormhole Production (1 cm^2 annually per invest; requires 100,000 pops to work it)

[] Civilian ships (select type)
-[] Freighter (Needs 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 113 invest, negligible crew)
-[] Liner (Needs 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 44 invest, 0.5 million crew)
-[] Construction Ship (Needs 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 127 invest, 2 million crew; has 5 Industrial Capacity)
-[] Explorer (Needs 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 11 invest, 1 million crew; has 1 Industrial Capacity)

[] Subsidized Wormhole (Find a natural black hole close to home, entangle it with a tiny one, send the light end elsewhere and pop it open, requires ship time)

[] Colonize a new star system! (Requires construction ships)
-[] Specify general details (Must be in the same galactic region)

Military Construction
[] Defense Skimmers (720 per invest)

[] Space Pocket Munitions Factory (unlocks Artillery Ships, unlocks Warp Torpedoes, needs: 10,000 cm^2 wormhole area, 80 invest, 2 million workers)

[] Warships (Select Type)
-[] Battleship (Requires 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 7 invest, 4 million crew)
--[] Include Warp Torpedoes (Locked, Requires Space Pocket Munitions Factory)
A solid brick of pure murder, a battleship sacrifices everything for the sake of combat capabilities. However, this comes at the cost of needing constant resupply.

-[] Battlecruiser (Requires 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 10 invest, 5 million crew)
--[] Include Warp Torpedoes (Locked, Requires Space Pocket Munitions Factory)
While close to a battleship in terms of combat capability, a battlecruiser has some minor compromises for the sake of logistical sustainability.

-[] Half Carrier (Requires 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 21 invest, 10 million crew)
--[] Include Warp Torpedoes (Locked, Requires Space Pocket Munitions Factory)
A versatile warship that brings a bit of everything to the table, Half-Carriers are well suited to independent operations patrolling the deep space between stars. However, they're much less useful in a major fleet engagement.

-[] Carrier (Requires 2 cm^2 wormhole area, 153 invest, 30 million crew)
--[] Include Warp Torpedoes (Locked, Requires Space Pocket Munitions Factory)
Purpose built to carry thousands of Skimmers into a combat theater, Carriers tend to hang back from the immediate line of combat if at all possible.

-[] Armed Logistics Cruiser (Requires 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 79 invest, 3 million crew)
An armed and armored freighter, ALCs are built to be the supply arm of a fleet, but retain the ability to defend themselves if needed. In addition, they also make great invasion ships when loaded with landing Skimmers.

-[] Minelayer (Requires 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 10 invest, 5 million crew)
Accelerating shrapnel shells to 0.2 c using an ergogun, the shots fired by a Minelayer are an excellent area denial tool.

-[] Artillery Ship (Locked, Requires Space Pocket Munitions Factory)
A weapon that flies faster than time, the miniaturized skip gates aboard these ships can launch a truly devastating payload across the battlespace in an instant if not interdicted.

-[] Irregular (Requires 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 120 invest, 2 million crew)
Also known as a pirate ship when in less savory hands, the only feature to recommend an Irregular is its ability to pass for a civilian ship at first glance.

Aside from your industrial planning, there's the matter of exploration. The Enterprise came home for a resupply recently, but the question of where else to explore (and what to send) is both still open and really quite important. After all, there's something incredibly weird going on in this galaxy and you want to know exactly what it is.

To that end, what ships will be sent exploring?
[] None, we're done exploring for now.
This will certainly have no negative consequences whatsoever.

[] Just the enterprise again.
Second score, same as before.

[] Refit the liners and send them too.
Or maybe send more?

The last issue on the agenda is what to do about the service sector crunch in the short term; your industrial growth has been amazing, but it's come with some serious troubles due to too much of your population being in industrial jobs at the moment. The long-term solution is of course to get more people and more room for said people, but the question remains of what to do in the meantime.

[] Do nothing (Blocked, No Soph Left Behind)
[] Ration Services (Blocked, No Soph Left Behind)
There are some things the people will not countenance.

[] Automate Vital Services
Adequate for routine troubles, but for anything complex you really want a person.

[] Overpopulate your habitats
Though your habitats aren't really designed for more, they can strictly speaking accommodate them.

[] Multi-task industrial workers
Through a complicated system of shift-juggling, mind-forking and second jobs you might just be able to make this work, though it risks burnout.

[] Understaff Industrial Operations
Though the burnout risk is minimized, this option risks an industrial accident of quite significant severity.

[] Write-In

 

[Luckless21]

At the moment, I think all we need are half carriers and and armed logistics vessels considering I don't see escorts unless, that's supposed to be the minelayer.

 

[We Just Write]

At the moment, I think all we need are half carriers and and armed logistics vessels considering I don't see escorts unless, that's supposed to be the minelayer.

Click to shrink...

R: The problem is that the size floor on Voidskippers makes the idea of an escort very difficult to pull off successfully. Battleships are about as small as Voidskippers go, and they're still over 20 kilometers in length.

 

[Luckless21]

Am i correct for assuming all non vital services are already automated?

 

[Luckless21]

[X] setting up patrols and logistics
[X] 50% (Final Industrial Capacity: 2098, Output Invested: 3734)
[X] Civilian ships (select type)
-[XXX] Freighter (Needs 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 113 invest, negligible crew)
-[XX] Explorer (Needs 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 11 invest, 1 million crew; has 1 Industrial Capacity)
-[XXX] Construction Ship (Needs 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 127 invest, 2 million crew; has 5 Industrial Capacity)
[X] Warships (Select Type)
-[X] Carrier (Requires 2 cm^2 wormhole area, 153 invest, 30 million crew)
-[XX] Half Carrier (Requires 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 21 invest, 10 million crew)
-[XXX] Armed Logistics Cruiser (Requires 1 cm^2 wormhole area, 79 invest, 3 million crew)
[X] Just the enterprise again.
[X] Automate Non-Vital Services

This is just us building up ships for patrolling (and building) future colonies, and moving supplies around, while opening up exploration to civilians.

 

[We Just Write]

Am i correct for assuming all non vital services are already automated?

Click to shrink...

Z: That is incorrect.

 

[hellbolo]

hmm. we suggest cutting back on things, in favour of also automating vital services, and playing our cards close to our chest. as well as building more habs.

[X] Automate Vital Services
Adequate for routine troubles, but for anything complex you really want a person.
-[X} Basic Habitats (800 km^2 per invest, fragile, Penalizes Cohesion]

 

[We Just Write]

Z: Reminder: You can put down up to three votes on each build order in the industrial section, for prioritization.

 

[hellbolo]

Z: Reminder: You can put down up to three votes on each build order in the industrial section, for prioritization.

Click to shrink...

we know. just don't have any other thoughts.

 

[AlexA4x]

Up with infrasturcture and slowly expand as we can support.

[x] 0% (Final Industrial Capacity: 1164, Output Invested: 5820)
[xxx] Additional Habitats (default pop density 600/km^2)(select type)
-[xxx] Basic Habitats (800 km^2 per invest, fragile, Penalizes Cohesion
[x] Subsidized Wormhole (Find a natural black hole close to home, entangle it with a tiny one, send the light end elsewhere and pop it open, requires ship time)
[xx] Colonize a new star system! (Requires construction ships)
-[xx] Wrele (TCGM)
[x] Just the enterprise again.
[x] Automate Vital Services

 

[Luckless21]

I'm thinking a carrier for flagship and half-carriers for escorts for our first fleet we can then mix in armed logistics cruisers with freighters as convoys to make it harder for pirates to steal stuff. Half-carrier patrols mean we shouldn't need to attach anything larger than the cruisers to the freighters themselves with the patrols acting as a rapid reaction force.